Monthly Archives: April 2010

Me and wifey are sick since yesterday. High fever (my fever reached 38.1 degrees; hers is 39.8!). Joint and muscle pains. Severe headache. Classic case of trancazo. I attribute it to our last-day tour of White Beach (Station 3 to Station 1) when the El Niño was at its zenith. And we swam on the cold, clear waters of Boracay from time to time during that long walk. Overfatigue with heatstroke? Bad idea. So don’t ever try doing that when you go there.

I would like to thank the staff of Willy’s Beach Club Hotel for the royalty treatment they feted us during the weekend. We had a beach blast from start to finish! Yeyette and I have experienced the best customer service ever! So once we get back to Boracay, Willy’s will definitely be our only choice.

Like this:

Today we commemorate the Day of Valor, formerly called Bataán Day, to remind us of the heroism of our soldiers there (together with American forces) against the Japanese invaders during World War II.

Bataán, the last province to surrender to Japanese aggression in the Pacific, was a bloody witness to that country’s victory over our shores. Major General Edward P. King, Jr., seeing the futility of putting up a gallant stand against the Japanese, was forced to surrender more than 76,000 of what is left under his command after three months of fighting the invaders. Of this number, almost 12,000 were American soldiers, thus making this the largest American military force in history to surrender to an enemy.

What followed next after the surrender was the brutal Bataán Death March, wherein the prisoners were forced to walk from Mariveles, Bataán to Capas, Tarlac under harsh conditions that would’ve made both Freddie Krueger and Jason Voorhees weep.

More or less 20,000 men died from the Bataán Death March.

We owe our freedom and our dignity to these great heroes of World War II. But may we not have wars anymore. Nowadays, wars are reserved only for the stupidest of men.

Day of Valor or not, the heroes of Bataán shall never ever be forgotten that easily.

The frequent brownouts in Metro Manila and surrounding provinces have led to speculations that this is a “dry run” of sorts for the upcoming May elections. One cannot help but suspect this scenario because next month’s elections will be the first time in history that COMELEC will use a computerized system of collecting and counting votes.

As if the sizzling summer were not enough, rotating brownouts are back in Metro Manila and Luzón, shutting down air-conditioners and electric fans that help people cope with the heat.

Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), the country’s biggest power distributor, said all cities and towns in its franchise area were affected by the outages Wednesday as a result of the huge power supply deficit in the Luzón grid.

In Metro Manila, traffic in certain areas like the South Expressway at the Pásay Road, Buendía and Vito Cruz intersections were particularly heavy. The traffic lights went dead.

Policemen had to direct the traffic to keep the vehicles flowing.

Meralco said it implemented two-hour rotating brownouts between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. and between 6:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. in the whole of Metro Manila and in the provinces of Batangas, Bulacán, Cavite, Laguna, Pampanga, Quezon and Rizal.

The power supply deficiency in the Luzón grid reached 662 megawatts (MW), bigger than Mindanáo’s deficit of 538 MW as of Wednesday afternoon, according to National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP).

Metro Manila and other parts of Luzón may continue to experience one- to two-hour rotating brownouts on Thursday as several power facilities are not operating.

Acting Energy Secretary José Ibazeta said the power situation would normalize in Luzón by “next week or so.”